Excerpt from News of Our Loved Ones by Abigail DeWitt, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

But he hadn’t come. She had waited faithfully, and he had forgotten her. She would die without him—her body revolted as if she’d swallowed something rotten: she couldn’t die. Then she began to laugh, a trembling so fine it was barely more than a hum. What choice was there? Soon—in a week? A few hours? She would simply cease.

The world had seemed so vivid that morning only because she was dying. For though she had loved the boy with the red hair, though it had been delicious to feel herself loved—tu es un oiseau—still, the sudden beauty of the walls, of the polished wood, of her mother’s sweat-stained dress—what were they but the rapture of farewell?

"I’ll be right there, Maman." She turned from the balcony and, without thinking, almost pulled the shutters closed, the windows, as if it were time for bed. Her chest burned, but her mother was waiting for her, with her kind, sagging face, her fat arms. Yvonne opened the door, and there was Maman, white with irritation. She wasn’t thinking of death at all.

The boy with the red hair did not love her, her mother’s face was stiff and disapproving as a nun’s (more so, because no one gave Maman extra coal). They would be dead soon and everyone went on with his work, as if it were a day like any other, as if it meant nothing at all to leave the honeysuckle, the sea cliffs, the footless leg of Mirabelle.

"It’s too late to have the talk I wanted to have with you," Maman said, sharply. "Oncle Henri wants you to get right to your studies."

But what could Maman have wanted to talk about, since apparently, she realized neither that Yvonne was in love, nor that they were going to be killed soon? Yvonne’s behavior at school? The need to economize? The coming chores? She reached up on impulse and put her palm to Maman’s cheek. "I’m sorry I overslept, petite Maman," she said, and kissed her.

Maybe it was better this way, with no one knowing.

Oncle Henri sat beside her and Françoise while they studied to make sure that their eyes did not stray to the open windows. Montaigne said, My life has been filled with terrible misfortune, most of which never happened, and the cool smell of the garden washed over her and she glanced at the dark hairs on the backs of Oncle Henri’s hands and the braids down Françoise’s back—how steadily they both read—and she would have kissed them, too, except that she didn’t want to startle them.

In the night, hearing bombs and sure they wouldn’t live till morning, Yvonne crawled into her mother’s bed.

"What is it?" Maman asked sleepily.

"I was afraid."

"Yvonne?" Maman asked, waking fully. "I thought you were Françoise. What are you doing here?"

"A bad dream."

"Sh-sh," said Maman. "You’re too big." But she put her arm around Yvonne, and Yvonne curled into her soft, faintly sour body.

The next day dawned more beautifully than the last—the clouds, all violet and gray, were blowing off—and Yvonne, hastily dressing in the room she loved so much, saw no reason why they should die that day or why the boy with the red hair, belatedly learning that the convent had sent all its pupils home, should not come by after all.

She went down to her bowl of chicory and gaily refused to brush her teeth after, because, she laughed—the joke never grew old—they might be dead by nightfall.

Maman sighed: there was an awful lot of work to be done. The windows hadn’t been washed in a month and there was a rabbit to kill.

Yvonne stood on her balcony after lunch, staring down at the end of the street, and though she imagined a hundred reasons why he might not show up—why should he have heard that the convent had sent the girls home?—her arms trembled at her sides and she felt as if she would be sick.

Excerpted from News of Our Loved Ones by Abigail DeWitt. Copyright © 2018 by Abigail DeWitt. Excerpted by permission of Harper. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.